A man in his 20s was fatally shot at a North East ISD campus hours before students and teachers began to arrive. Video: Police walk suspects out of headquarters Crimebase: Search recent police reports

Published 5:13 am, Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A police officer escorts Raymundo Ruvalcaba. The 17-year-old is one of three suspects in a slaying on the grounds of Clear Spring Elementary School.

A police officer escorts Raymundo Ruvalcaba. The 17-year-old is one of three suspects in a slaying on the grounds of Clear Spring Elementary School.

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Murder suspect Jonathan Maciel, 22, is escorted from police headquarters to Magistrate Court in the wake of a killing in an elementary school yard.

Murder suspect Jonathan Maciel, 22, is escorted from police headquarters to Magistrate Court in the wake of a killing in an elementary school yard.

Man is gunned down at school

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A man was shot multiple times with a semi-automatic handgun and left to die on the playground of Clear Spring Elementary School during a botched predawn drug deal, police said Wednesday.

Officers arrested three men and charged them with murder shortly after the shooting on the North East Independent School District campus.

The victim, pronounced dead at the scene, was in his 20s. His name wasn't released, although authorities have established a tentative ID.

Neighbors called 911 about 4:30 a.m. after hearing gunshots at the school in the 4300 block of Clear Spring Drive. One witness saw a man run from the school, get into a gray vehicle and speed away, police Capt. Cris Andersen said.

Police put out a description of the vehicle and officers stopped it soon after at an apartment complex in the 9500 block of Perrin Beitel Road, detaining four men, Andersen said.

Police reported finding marijuana and a blood-spattered assault rifle in the trunk.

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Jonathan Maciel, 22, Raymundo Ruvalcaba, 17, and Javier Ruvalcaba, 22, each was charged with murder and booked into Bexar County Jail in lieu of posting $100,000 bail.

Javier Ruvalcaba was treated for a gunshot wound to the leg at University Hospital before being taken to jail.

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The driver of the car was released after investigators determined he wasn't involved in the drug deal.

Maciel and the younger Ruvalcaba told police the victim pulled the rifle out before the shooting erupted, and Maciel said he put it in the trunk of the gray car as the group fled, a police report states. A handgun - possibly thrown out of the car while the men were driving away - also was recovered, Andersen said.

Police said the men had arranged to meet at the school so the victim could buy marijuana. The men had broken a small lock to get into the playground, which is bordered by a chain-link fence, NEISD Police Chief George Castañeda said.

Investigators still were at the school when teachers and staff began to arrive. Police closed the street in front of the school and redirected buses and parents to the back. Students were kept in Clear Spring's cafeteria until about 8:30 a.m., Castañeda said.

A district spokeswoman said a letter was to be sent home with students Wednesday to inform parents of the incident. Castañeda said there had been no reports of other drug activity on the school grounds.

Although school was not in session when the shooting took place, it rattled some parents.

"It really concerns me," said Martha Ozornia, 37, whose daughter, 11, is a fifth-grader at Clear Spring. "It was shocking. Now I'm wondering, how safe are we there?"

She said her husband told her about the police presence after taking their girl to school and that she called the front desk to make sure things were under control.

Murder suspect Jonathan Maciel, 22, is escorted from police headquarters to Magistrate Court in the wake of a killing in an elementary school yard.

Courtesy photo

Jonathan Maciel

Courtesy photo

Raymundo Ruvalcaba

Courtesy photo

Javier Ruvalcaba

Melinda Hansen, the mother of a 7-year-old boy in first grade, said she thinks it was an isolated incident.

"It's still a safe environment; this could have happened anywhere," she said.

But Hansen, 41, said she was relieved her son with special needs was busy reading a comic book as she dropped him off in the back of the school, so he didn't notice the police, crime scene tape and TV crews.

"He didn't even know anything was going on," she said.

With the tape removed, parents picking up their kids in the afternoon said they were calm about it.

The "police handled it as best as they could; they did well," Isabel Soriano said as she gathered her two children, Samantha, a third-grader and Rafaelle, a second-grader.

She recalled another drug-related shooting two years ago just across the street and said she was reassured her children were escorted to morning classes by their teachers even as investigators finished their on-site review.

"I don't have a safety concern for my daughter," Sarah Ortiz said. "But I am very glad that if this had to happen, it happened when children were not around, that it happened so early."